Judge Ostler’s Super week winners, losers

After three days of conviviality and trench warfare between the media and the players, there are winners and losers, and I’m here to sort ’em out for you.

Gays are winners

I have not been appointed spokesguy for the gay community, that I know of, but when you put Wednesday’s and Thursday’s news in perspective, gays and supporters come out miles ahead.

Because of the discussion and debate set off by Chris Culliver’s homophobic remarks, we moved a little closer to the day when gays in sports will be no big deal.Culliver, a 49ers defensive back, spent Thursday’s media session apologizing. He was far from eloquent, as you might expect from reading or hearing his original remarks, but he seemed contrite.

Culliver said repeatedly of his gay-bashing words, “It’s nothing I feel in my heart.”

That was his go-to line, and finally he was asked, “Why would you say something that’s the exact opposite of what you believe?”

Culliver’s explanation was that the media crush was dizzying and his remarks were his way of dismissing the comedian who posed the questions.

So how do gays win? For one thing, had Culliver not popped off, we might not have heard Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo’s comments on gays, remarks that actually tell us something and give us perspective.

Ayanbadejo said he believes that 50 percent of the league’s players “think like Culliver, 25 percent think like me,” and the remaining 25 percent are “accepting” of the possibility of gay players in the NFL.

Asked if the numbers are improving, Ayanbadejo said, “Oh, yeah, because you know, you went from 95 percent of the people thinking like Culliver. … So we’re definitely winning the battle.”

Without Culliver popping off, we wouldn’t have heard his teammate Ahmad Brooks tell his media session what he would tell Culliver: ” ‘Damn, fella, think before you talk a little bit. Gay people are people just like us. It’s discrimination.’ “

Because of Culliver, the NFL – unless it believes that homosexuality is a passing fad, like the pistol offense – will immediately develop a serious, league-wide program of sexuality awareness and education.

Maybe the league could throw in some domestic-violence seminars, gun control and driver training. Make it a weeklong consciousness-expanding, wake-up-call boot camp.

The 49ers are winners

The team didn’t bungle the Culliver clean-up operation. Not that it had any option other than full desperation spin control, but at least the 49ers got all the top people involved, and didn’t go on the defensive.

Artie Lange is a winner (although it’s hard to type those words).

If you’re keeping score at home, Lange’s contributions to American culture are:

His drug-fueled attack on Joe Buck torpedoed Buck’s wretched TV talk show, and Lange’s potty journalism unintentionally opened a national dialogue on gays and sports.

Randy Moss is a loser

How do you drop your legacy from “weird guy, but one of the all-time great receivers” to “delusional egomaniac who caught a lot of passes”? Take a lesson from Moss.

Reportedly, Moss has been a solid team leader, and he deserves credit for that, especially considering what a team-wrecker he can be. But to many of us on the outside, Moss is a clueless, antisocial diva, adrift in outer space.

Ray Lewis is a loser

If there has ever been a bigger, scarier gasbag on the Super Bowl stage than Ray Lewis, I missed it.

Lewis is at the end of his self-promoted goodbye tour, and he had a chance to leave a strong positive impression.

Instead, he used his three days with the media to climb to the pulpit and, with great force and elocution, preach a sermon titled, “Shut Up and Recognize My Greatness.”

Lewis proclaims himself a great leader, boasts of his faith and spirituality, cites Scripture, and then runs from legit questions about serious misdeeds with which he has connected himself.

I didn’t expect Lewis to confess to stabbing a man after Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta (the year before Lewis’ Ravens won), but I didn’t expect him to launch an offensive against anyone asking obvious questions.

Then came reports that Lewis had used PEDs, in the form of deer-antler-velvet extract, to aid the healing of an arm injury.

“The trick of the devil,” Lewis thundered, “is to kill, steal and destroy. That’s what he comes to do. He comes to distract you from everything you’re trying to do.”

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. Thank goodness we have a powerful man like Ray Lewis to fight the devil’s trickerations.

We’re all winners

Super Bowl week can be, to steal from the old Civil War quote, days and days of tedium punctuated by moments of sheer boredom.

Culliver, Moss, Lewis, Jim Harbaugh and a few others have saved us from that fate. A toast to them: Here’s Mississippi mud in your eye.